Vintage Band Festival is looking for folks to help with various tasks during our upcoming event on July 26-27, 2024. The times that help is needed are 1:00 – 11:00 pm on July 26 and 7:00 am – 11:00 pm on July 27. Please let us know of your interest and availability by sending an message to bergesod@gmail.com.
Category Archives: VBF Volunteers
Jan Stevens and Lois Stratmoen, VBF volunteers extraordinaire
The next two profiles showcase two of the longest-serving Vintage Band Festival board members, Jan Stevens, our Fundraising Committee chair and Lois Stratmoen, our donor Correspondent.
Jan Stevens
VBF board member and chief fundraiser, Jan Stevens, is a person of action who leads by example. Since 1994 Jan has been involved with the Northfield Rotary Club, and specifically with the Rotary Youth Exchange Program. Jan has been a champion advocate for Northfield and after retiring from the real estate world this is what she had to say about living here:
“Northfield has everything, 45 minutes to an international airport, 5 times a day bus
service to the metro area, one hour to the Mayo Clinic Hospitals, two outstanding
colleges that bookend the north side of Northfield, culture diverse activities that rival
anywhere, recreational activities for all ages, and church and bar music that rivals much
larger communities.”
That civic pride and keen sense of the arts brings us to her involvement with VBF. It was Jan’s generous gift that enabled the Vintage Band Festival Fund to be created in 2023. The fund is part of Northfield Shares and was established to allow the Vintage Band Festival to develop a more sustainable financial strategy. Jan’s passion for our community is contagious!
Lois Stratmoen
When was the last time you received a hand-written note in the mail? VBF board member and Donor Correspondent, Lois Stratmoen, is known for handwriting notes, not only to patrons of the Vintage Band Festival, but also to Northfield area youth who are featured in the Northfield News.
Lois and her husband Noel have been citizens of Northfield for more than 50 years. Her list of civic leadership roles is impressive to say the least. Here are a few: former chair of the Northfield Hospital Board, former church council president of Bethel Lutheran Church, Board of Directors/Northfield United Way, Northfield Arts Guild member and cast member in many Guild musical productions, and co-recipient of the 2003 Northfield Sertoma Service to Mankind Award. We are honored to have the wisdom and personal touch of Lois Stratmoen serving VBF!
Meet the new VBF Board members
At its February 2024 Board of Directors meeting, the Vintage Band Festival board elected three new members to the group, bringing the total number of directors to fifteen. We’re pleased to introduce Lee Enquist, Vicki Scott and Bonnie Jean Flom.
Lee Engquist
Lee is a recently retired Corporate Tax Director at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota where he worked for more than 20 years. He is a graduate of St. Olaf College from Fairmont, Minnesota and sings in the I Cantanti choral ensemble in Northfield. He is a dedicated donor and volunteer for Vintage Band Festival.
Vicki Scott
This winter Vicki opened a new record store in downtown Northfield called Verbena Vinyl. Previously, she was the social media coordinator at Just Food Coop in Northfield from 2016 to 2020. She has also been the marketing manager at the coop in Hastings, Minnesota. She’s written grants for her personal art projects. During the pandemic she worked as a training manager with a health care company. Vicki has an MFA in creative writing and an MA in secondary ed/teaching.
Bonnie Jean Flom
Bonnie is life-long education professional beginning with a teaching position at Longfellow Elementary School in Northfield. She later became the principal for several years at Greenvale Elementary School. After that she held positions in public schools in the Twin Cities. For many years, Bonnie was the lead singer in a popular local ensemble called Bonnie and the Clydes.
Calling all Vintage Band Festival Volunteers
Vintage Band Festival relies heavily on volunteers to stage its annual events. Without our loyal donors and helpers, we couldn’t do what we do. If you’re interested in joining us on July 29 and you have a couple hours to help out, we’d love to meet you and give you a set of tasks. You could help us with set up on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, you could work in the information tent recording donations and answering questions or you could help us on Saturday evening as we close out the show and put stuff away.
Our work shift signup is on a site called SignUp Genius and you can follow this link to see what’s still available: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0e48afa92ea6ff2-vintage3#/.
We’d really appreciate the help! Thanks in advance for your consideration.
Vintage Band Festival 2023 will take place on July 29, 2023.
Looking for Vintage Band Festival 2022 Volunteers
St. Olaf student Sarah Stevens staffing the VBF 2014 Info Tent
There are many ways to volunteer for Vintage Band Festival 2022. We need folks to help with setup in Bridge Square on July 27 and 28. We also need folks to help with take down on July 31 and August 1.
From Thursday, July 28 to Sunday, July 31 we need folks to staff the VBF Information Tent to take donations, sell merchandise and tell visitors about the festival. We also need people to manage chairs, music stands, and percussion equipment on the stages at Bridge Square and Central Park.
If you have a couple hours or a couple days, please visit our SignUp Genius website and choose your shifts. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0e48afa92ea6ff2-vintage2
THANK YOU!
Northfield Shares recognizes Vintage Band Festival volunteers
April was National Volunteer Month. Throughout the month the Northfield News and Northfield Shares, an advocate of volunteer activism, highlighted several local organizations and individuals in a series of social media posts and newspaper stories. One of the organizations they chose to feature was Vintage Band Festival. During the 16 years that VBF has been in operation, all of the work done to present live band music in dozens of Northfield locations has been performed by volunteers. From the 12-member working Board of Directors to the homestay host families to the majority of the musicians, the volunteer ethic is alive and well. Thanks to all of our volunteers! Read about all of the volunteers honored on the Northfield Shares website.
If you’d like to volunteer to help with VBF 2022, check the VBF website later this month to learn what tasks need doing and when.
Dan Bergeson, Randy Ferguson, Jan Stevens at a recent VBF Board meeting
Thanks to everyone who made VBF 2019 possible!
Several weeks have passed since the last notes of Vintage Band Festival 2019 have faded to silence, but it’s still timely to once again thank all the folks who contributed in any way towards the success of the weekend. Click on the images below to read the names of the individuals in the many categories of our organization and its operation.
Most especially, thanks to those who contributed financially to the festival. Without adequate funding, it would not be possible to stage Vintage Band Festival. Our donors rock!
